


A Rock And A Hard Place

by AgentHill (DancingAlbatross)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-24 17:10:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2589578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingAlbatross/pseuds/AgentHill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria Hill is no longer Deputy Director at SHIELD. In fact, she's not at SHIELD anymore at all. Yet she can't escape the Avengers. What starts as simple phone calls from Steve Rogers while he's searching for Bucky Barnes turns into something else entirely when both men return - with everyone getting more than they bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended to be a Steve/Maria work of fiction. But as I began jumping into later chapters and fleshing out the plot, I found there was a spark with Bucky Barnes as well and have decided to pursue it. There will be jealousy, angst, lust, and drama abound. I should probably tell you that I am a sucker for happy endings though.
> 
> Additionally, this is my first fic on the server as well as in a very long time in general, so I hope you all enjoy it.

It starts with a phone call. She’s exhausted after yet another day, and she sincerely considers not even answering the phone when it rings. It isn’t the dedicated ringtone that indicates it is a work related call.

Still, she slides her thumb across the screen and lifts the phone to her ear.

“This is Hill.”

There is a deep sigh on the other end of the line and she waits for whomever it is to speak, realizing she hadn’t even glanced at the caller ID.

“It’s Steve.”

Her mind mulls through the possible Steves that could be calling her, but it clicks a second later. The warm timbre of his voice is still there, even with the evident exhaustion in his tone.

“Captain Rogers,” she sits up a bit straighter, wondering why Captain America is calling her mobile phone. She hasn’t seen him since he set off with Sam Wilson a month ago, in search of the Winter Soldier, hoping against all odds that his former best friend was still in there somewhere. “Are you in need of assistance?”

“Steve,” he corrects gently. “And no, I mean, maybe.” There is another pause, some rustling as though he is moving from room to room. “Do you think that this is a fool’s errand?”

Maria blinks, chewing on her lip as she tries to think of an answer. In all honesty, from all of the files she’d read on the Winter Soldier, she is more or less certain any trace of humanity was missing – any trace of Bucky Barnes was gone. But could she tell him that? She is no longer an agent of SHIELD, really. She no longer has to be Agent Hill – brutal and professional in her assessments of situations.

“What time is it where you are?” she deflects instead.

“Too late, or early. Sam’s asleep. Answer the question.”

“You should be asleep then. Why did you call me?”

“Agent Hill,” his voice is a bit rougher than she’s ever heard it. What little patience he had upon deciding to call her is dwindling quickly.

“Not an agent anymore,” she corrects. She pauses thoughtfully before taking a breath and continuing on. “Do you know why I stayed on board at SHIELD even though I disagreed fundamentally with the Avengers Initiative? Because I believed, at my core, that SHIELD was doing the right thing for the country – for the entire world. Because I truly believed that being one of the ‘good guys’ and fighting the good fight was worth it, no matter how uphill the battle.”

She can practically hear the wheels turning in his head as she pauses again.

“So perhaps my question to you is: how much do you believe in Bucky Barnes, sir?”

He sucks in a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Thank you,” he practically whispers. “And it’s Steve,” he adds insistently.

“Fine, Steve. You should get some rest, but keep in contact and if you need any-”

“Maria,” he cuts her off, and his use of her first name gives her substantial pause. “Wait, don’t…go yet. How are you?”

It is in that moment that she realizes that Captain America had not called her, just Steve Rogers. A man feeling that he was on a fool’s mission even though his heart wouldn’t let him give up, a man in need of a friend.

So she speaks to him, updating him on her new job at Stark Industries, how she was still able to use some of the resources at her disposal to fight the good fight, how nice of a boss Pepper was, and her frequent interactions with Tony Stark.

“Have you drawn a weapon on him yet?” Steve asks as she recounts stories of her debates with the arrogant billionaire.

“You know, I don’t think he argues with me to start a fight, I think verbal sparring is his medium of communication. And I think sometimes, when Pepper is really busy it distracts him from his own thoughts. So I entertain it and don’t take it to heart.”

Steve comments on how that sounded so different from the Deputy Director he once knew.

He tells her lighter tales of his adventures with Sam, stops they’ve made in their pursuit of Bucky.

“There was a language barrier, but I am ninety percent certain that Sam is married right now to a woman in Prague.”

Maria laughs a bit harder than she should at that.

She answers questions about the rest of the Avengers to the best of her ability, particularly Natasha and Bruce, because he asks questions about them respectively.

They talk about more serious things.

“I saw…” he starts and she isn’t sure where he’s going with it. “Your hearings with Congress. I’m sorry that you had to endure that, Maria. I know that your job…”

“Steve,” she warns. “I loved being an agent, I did. But things happen for a reason. Maybe I was wrong about the Avengers Initiative, maybe I was right. I’ll answer to any hearings I’m subjected to, because I know that regardless of my feelings on the tactics, I contributed to saving the world and I performed the duties I pledged to carry out. And I’m still fighting a good fight, it’s okay.” She chews her lip for a moment. “But if you ever ask me to blow you up again, I am going to refuse.”

“Deal,” he agrees.

They talk a bit longer, he tells her stories from the second World War and Sam’s attempts to help catch him up on pop culture references as they travel together. They both laugh when even she is clueless as to what some of the references are in relation to.

“The sun’s coming up here,” he says eventually, as though he knows he has to get off the phone soon and she thinks she’s imagining the reluctance in his voice.

“It’s going down here,” she remarks evenly. “You should try to at least get an hour or so of sleep, you may be a super soldier, but you’re still human, Steve.”

He laughs at that, and she’s not sure why. Before she can ask, he concedes that she might be right. “Can I call you again?”

By the time she’s tucking her phone away, she wonders if she said ‘yes’ too quickly.

* * *

He calls her several times over the next two weeks, and during one of the calls he asks her a favor.

“Could you please check on Peggy Carter for me?” 

“Why don’t you get in contact with her niece?”

“I trust you, Maria. It’s very important to me.”

He regales her with tales of Peggy Carter back in the 1940s and something about the reverence in his tone as he speaks about another woman makes something ache in Maria’s chest, but she chalks it up to sentiment that she never allowed herself to feel as an agent.

She asks Pepper for a day off to take a long weekend in Washington D.C. and goes to see Peggy. She knows that all she really has to do is check in with the doctors and maybe even try to get in contact with her niece at Langley. But she elects to sit with the woman for a while. The older woman isn’t doing well by any means, but she converses with Maria – sometimes lucid enough to have conversations about Steve, her time in the service, and the difficulties she faced as a female soldier in the 1940s. A few times, Maria catches a spark in her eyes and understands how Steve fell so irrevocably in love with her and the ache he must feel when he sees her and thinks of what might have been. She sees a gusto that is mirrored in her own spirit and understands the reverence in Steve’s tone when he speaks of her, as a woman who is also former government agent, Maria understands that Peggy Carter was a pioneer and a trailblazer. 

She reports all of this back to Steve the next time he phones her, while she’s sitting at the gate waiting for her flight back to New York City.

“You do remind me of her,” he remarks simply, and Maria tries not to take it as the utmost compliment.

* * *

Most of their conversations are casual, Maria realizes that somehow she has become his link to home – or, rather, his new makeshift home that he acquired since waking up decades after any life he previously knew. Sometimes he asks her for help, anything she can tell him by using her resources at work. She can tell it pains him to ask, but she knows he isn’t trying to take advantage of her for information, and she wishes he understood it was no burden. 

Steve is typically very aware of her schedule when he calls. Even if it is three in the morning where he is, he makes sure that he is calling her at a reasonable hour when she is out of work. Twice, meetings with Pepper have run long and she’s had to put off his call. He always calls from a different number, so she cannot call him back. But the longest they go without speaking is forty-eight hours.

So when her phone rings at 4 in the morning, something wrenches in her gut. She instinctively knows it’s him and thinks that if he is calling at such an off time, that something must be wrong. She fumbles for the phone.

“Steve, what is it? What’s wrong?”

He’s breathing hard into the phone and her breath catches.

“Maria. We found him. We found Bucky.”

* * *

She is standing on the other side of the glass, shoulder to shoulder with Natasha. 

Bruce and Tony are running tests on Bucky Barnes. Several times, Tony and Steve have to physically restrain the Winter Soldier and subdue him. Once, Bruce nearly has to leave the lab to keep the ‘Other Guy’ from being provoked.

Sometimes, Natasha’s eyes flash with something Maria can’t quite identify but she believes it’s a sort of recognition. There was a lot redacted from the files on both Black Widow and the Winter Soldier, even with Maria’s security clearance. However, it didn’t take a genius to piece what was there together.

Eventually, Bucky is sedated. Bruce makes a hasty exit. Tony leaves muttering that he needs a strong drink.

Steve steps out, casting a glance through the glass at his best friend. Maria wants to reach out and lay a comforting hand on him, but she hesitates and Natasha moves first. Maria can’t blame the ache in her chest on sentimentality this time.

Since his return, Steve and Maria have barely communicated. She wonders if the looks they exchange when they are both in Stark Tower together are as loaded as she interprets them for a while, but eventually believes that she was imagining the whole thing.

She served her purpose to him while he was away, and now that he’s back – among the Avengers and focusing on Barnes, there are no more phone calls and hardly a word spoken.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a Stark Industries fundraiser. Maria is being a good employee and making sure that any kinks in the evening’s itinerary go through her so that Pepper can enjoy the evening and focus only on reigning in Tony.

However after the first hour, any issues with caterers, vendors, security, and guests settle down and Maria is afforded the rare opportunity to relax. She barely knows what to do.

A flute of champagne is pressed into her hand. “Stop fidgeting around so much, looks like you’re up to something.”

Her eyes meet Bucky Barnes’ and she offers him a very brief smile and a nod in thanks for the drink before taking a sip.

Bucky’s recovery has gone well and while he has had a few issues along the way, he seems lighter tonight – more relaxed. She takes in his appearance in his tuxedo and neatly styled hair and is pleased – for both him and for Steve.

“You clean up well, Barnes,” she says coolly.

“And you look absolutely stunning, Ms. Hill,” he nods.

Her interactions with the man sometimes known as the Winter Soldier have been brief, but he’d been quartered at Stark Towers since his return to the United States and therefore, due to her job, sometimes met with her in the elevator or at Pepper and Tony’s for the occasional social gathering. Even during those, though, Maria stayed to the background like a wallflower, talking with Pepper and ever grateful when one of her other co-workers or Dr. Jane Foster was in attendance.

“Maria,” she corrects him before taking another sip of her champagne.

Then he starts fidgeting and she knows it’s because he still hasn’t quite acclimated – he has not reconciled with the man he was forced to be, the man he must be now, and the society that surrounds him; especially not at a function such as this. She only knows it, because she’s seen it before on another man and she is in tune to it. To any casual observer, Bucky Barnes looks like a handsome man in a nice tuxedo with a charming smile. He’s even set the hologram function on his cybernetic arm to give it the appearance of being flesh and blood.

She puts a gentle hand on his arm, and he settles down.

“Trust me, everyone feels this way at a Stark function,” she promises, and even though it’s not quite true, it abates the man’s anxiety.

“Is this riff-raff harassing you, ma’am?”

They both turn to see Steve approaching with a good-natured smile.

“I’d like to think we were enjoying each other’s company,” Bucky snarks back with a smirk and Maria watches two old friends falling into a routine as if war, death, and decades hadn’t separated them at all.

“She could do better, Bucks. And I don’t think she’d hesitate to shoot you.”

Maria chuckles at this, but it’s strained. She cannot remember her last conversation with Steve and has to reign in her expression at the familiarity in his remarks.

“Captain Rogers is right, I’m quick on the draw. But I think you’re safe Barnes. If you’ll both excuse me,” she says gently before draining her champagne flute completely and stepping away.

Five minutes later, Barnes is shown firsthand how quickly Maria can draw a firearm when the windows of the reception hall shatter and dozens of Kree descend.

Thor is the quickest to be battle ready, Mjölnir never kept too far from his reach, followed by Natasha who is her own deadly weapon. Clint’s up in the rafters before anyone can question where he’d stashed his quiver this entire time. Tony keeps finding more and more compact ways to keep the suit available to him at all times.

Maria and Barnes have their backs against each other, Barnes wielding a gun he took off of a security guard that had been taken down in the initial blast. Out of the corner of her eye, Maria knows Steve doesn’t have his shield with him but seems prepared to fight anyway.

“Bastards got glass in my hair,” Bucky quips; even though his voice is rough and it is evident his mind is in the fight.

“They ruined a dress that cost me a week’s pay,” Maria retorts.

“Steve! Move. I’ve got your six!” Barnes shouts.

Everything from there on out is a blur of adrenalin mixed with sheer willpower.

* * *

“Stay still!”

“That hurts,” Bucky grouses as Maria tends to a gash on his forehead. EMTs are on the scene as well as several government agencies all talking heatedly with Stark. Barnes refused to be treated by the EMTs, not trusting them for whatever reason. When she’s done applying the bandages, she sits down beside him on the steps outside of the reception hall. Her dress is torn, she has superficial cuts from the broken glass, one of her high heels broke, and her hair that had been pinned up in loose curls is now falling into her face. Barnes tore a sleeve on his tuxedo jacket, has blood on his shirt, the gash on his forehead isn’t as deep as it looks but is still rather large, and somehow one of his pant legs was singed.

They looked like quite the pair.

Steve walks over to them, joining them on the steps and he looks just as battle ravaged as Bucky does, but neither of them looks as tired as Maria.

“Tell you what, I could go for a shawarma,” Steve quips, but his jaw is still tight and he’s still on edge. He clasps Bucky’s hand in his and nods at his friend before his gaze lands on Maria, his eyes are full of concern that she doesn’t want or need.

“No shawarmas until the fat lady sings, this is far from over,” Natasha says as he walks up behind them, shoulder to shoulder with Clint.

Everyone agrees to go back to Stark Tower to take inventory of the night’s events and figure out what the next step is. The Kree are on a warpath against the Skrull, and it seems that the innocent people of Earth are right in the middle of that warpath.

As Maria stands, Steve’s gaze is still focused on her. “Are you all right?”

“Perfectly fine, Captain Rogers.”

She convinces herself that his face doesn’t fall at the formal way she addresses him.

* * *

Later that night, as they’re all coming to the conclusion that they’ll be better able to assess the situation more in the morning with fresh eyes, Maria is trying to refuse Pepper’s offer to stay in their guest room rather than trek back to her apartment in Queens. In all honesty, Pepper had been trying to convince her to move in for quite some time now.

“You know, there’s an extra room down in Steve’s suite, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” Bucky chimes in from where he’s still examining files pulled up on the Kree.

Steve gapes at Bucky for a moment but then offers Maria a tight smile and nod.

“C’mon,” Barnes encourages Maria. “You’re coming back first thing in the morning anyway. Easier commute.”

All Maria really wants to do is take a hot shower and slip into something comfortable, but she’s dead on her feet and thinks maybe staying at the Tower tonight is a better idea than navigating her way out to Astoria.

As the others clean up and Pepper goes to look for clothes to loan Maria, Steve is examining her again.

“I’m fine,” she assures him.

“I know,” he promises, holding his hands up defensively. “I was just thinking it was a shame the party ended early, I was going to ask you to dance.”

Something flares in Maria, a mix of that fluttering feeling she used to get during her phone calls with Steve and anger that he can still evoke that feeling after casting her aside upon his return to New York. She thinks about the stories he’s told her of Peggy and the dance they were supposed to have and it all confuses her even more.

“Well, I never really was the dancing sort, Captain.”

She takes the elevator downstairs with Bucky while Steve finishes a discussion with Bruce and Thor.

“Are you…”

“I’m fine,” she snaps, staring straight ahead until Bucky continues his question.

“…hungry?” 

“Oh.”

* * *

When Steve finally makes it down to his suite, there’s soft jazz music playing and he hears a woman’s soft laugh from the kitchen. Curious, he follows the sound and finds Bucky swatting Maria’s hand away from the pan he’s cooking with before he lifts the spoon and allows her to have a taste. She hums with contentment and he removes the pan from the heat.

Steve watches as Bucky fetches a couple of bowls for the food he’d made and Maria lifts herself onto the countertop. She’s already changed out of her tattered dress and into a tank top and shorts that Pepper had given to her.

Bucky mutters something between bites and Maria swings her leg out to kick him in the side lightly, but he clutches his abdomen dramatically and groans.

Steve isn’t sure why, but it feels as though he is intruding on something in his own apartment. 

* * *

Bucky Barnes has horrible nightmares; it’s something Maria learns that night.

Upon being awoken by the noise, she’d reached for her sidearm and stepped into the hallway, but when she arrives at his bedroom door and peeks in, she sees Bucky thrashing on the mattress, crying out in pain.

She’s startled when Steve appears behind her, gentle hand on her shoulder before he walks past her to wake his friend up.

Barnes wakes with a start and Maria barely has time to blink before he has Steve pressed against the nearest wall with his cybernetic arm against his throat. Steve is calm though and Maria realizes this is not the first time it has happened. She goes into the kitchen to make some tea.

Moments later, Bucky trudges out of his bedroom and his eyes land on her. He looks a bit embarrassed, but she just smiles at him. “How do you take your tea?”

“Lots of sugar,” he responds, walking over to her and leaning against the kitchen counter. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“It’s fine. These things happen.” Bucky doesn’t seem to believe her and so she looks at him. “I’ve had them.”

“What are yours about?”

So Maria tells him. She tells him about a childhood of believing that the world would have been better had she never been born, because her mother would have still been alive and her father would have been a happier man. She tells him about the first kill she ever made in the military, and the nights she spent afterwards wondering if that man had a wife and children to miss him. She tells him about her first kill as a SHIELD agent and how she did, in fact, know about the man’s wife and children and the thin nearly invisible line she walked between doing what she’d been ordered to do and being the best person she thought she could be.

Eventually, they’re sitting on the couch and somehow Maria has found herself sitting sideways, her legs across Bucky’s lap. He strokes her leg absentmindedly and tells her about memories he has missing from his old life that keep coming back to him in broken pieces. He tells her about his memories as the Winter Soldier.

“I counted. The other day. I tried to count them the other day,” his voice has an uncharacteristic waiver to it. “Not even all of them, just the ones I could remember were actually innocent. Bystanders, children caught up in the fray.”

Maria shifts closer, leans a head on his shoulder without even thinking about her actions. She can’t think of words to comfort him, but apparently she doesn’t have to. His arm wraps around her and they stay there in comfortable silence until Bucky drifts into a dreamless sleep and she follows suit. 

That is how Steve finds them both the next morning when he wakes up to make some coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so far to everyone who has read and left some sort of feedback or subscribed to the story so far. I am in the process of editing chapter four and chapter five. I hope to update this story fairly regularly and also work on any plot bunnies in my head. Feedback is always appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

After the second encounter with the Kree, everyone is too exhausted even for shawarmas that Tony generously offers to treat the team to.

They all know that this isn’t the last of their blue-skinned enemy, but they believe they may have bought themselves some time to regroup.

Again, Maria’s clothes are tattered and she starts a bit when Bucky drops into a chair beside her in Stark’s apartment and drops his jacket over her shoulders.

She wants nothing more than a hot shower to wash off the dirt and grime and hopefully shake the feeling of the blue hand that had been wrapped around her throat, ready to crush the life from her. It was the Winter Soldier who’d approached, taking off the Kree’s arm and declaring snidely that the two of them now matched.

She meets his gaze now and dips her chin in silent thanks.

“That’s one,” he says just loud enough that she can hear. “One good life protected.”

“That’s a good count to keep,” she nods.

The subway lines have all been shut down. New York is still standing, and in quite better shape than the last time a fight came to Manhattan. But everyone agrees it’s best to spend another night at Stark Tower. This time, Bucky gives Maria a shirt to change into.

She pads back into the living room of Steve’s apartment barefoot and with hair still damp from her shower. Steve is on one end of the couch reading a book and Bucky apparently already very reenergized, doing push ups and not even out of breath as he talks to Steve.

“And then what happens?” Bucky is asking curiously.

“I don’t know I haven’t gotten that far yet.” Steve’s voice is a mix of bored and frustrated.

“Well, read faster.”

“Would you prefer I read it out loud?”

“I prefer it when you just tell me what happens.”

“Yeah, just like English class when we were kids.”

Maria leans against the wall and watches the two of them for a moment.

“You know I only did that because you liked doing the work so much, Steve. Didn’t want to deprive you of that joy.”

Steve practically snorts and shakes his head before turning the page.

“Some things never change.”

Barnes chuckles, flicks his cybernetic arm which makes a satisfyingly metallic sound. “Some things definitely do.”

Steve’s jaw flexes, but Barnes doesn’t notice. He switches to sit-ups. Maria clears her throat as she walks further into the living room. “Geez, Barnes, just watching you is making me tired. Damn super soldiers and your stamina.”

“And here I thought a man with stamina was a good thing,” Bucky says, not caring that the statement makes Steve’s ears turn slightly pink, especially when it earns a throaty chuckle from Maria. 

“Seems that you forgot all that 1940’s charm that Captain Rogers here still has in spades, Barnes,” Maria quips, apparently now finding amusement in making Steve blush as well.

He finishes his sit-ups a few moments later and Maria arches her eyebrow when she notices him staring at her. “Man sure could get used to the look of a good woman in his clothes.”

“Don’t see any good women around, Barnes,” Maria fires back, turning her attention back to the magazine she plucked up a few seconds after sitting on the couch.

Bucky laughs and shakes his head. “I’m going to shower.”

Maria briefly wonders how that works with the cybernetic prosthetic but doesn’t voice it. A steady silence falls over the room. Maria stares at the magazine again, though she isn’t really focused on the words on the page. When the quiet finally begins to get to her, she contemplates going back to the guest room to rest. Instead, she turns to Steve. “What are you reading?”

He flashes her the cover and Maria’s eyebrows knit together. It was a book she’d mentioned enjoying during one of their phone calls. Their eyes lock for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I realize that I’ve been caught up with Bucky being back, and I never really thanked you for everything that you did while I was away.”

“It’s fine, Cap.”

“If it’s fine, why won’t you call me Steve again?”

She chews on her lip for a moment. He stares at her mouth. “We should have taken Stark up on that food,” she says, turning away.

 “I could cook,” Steve offers.

When Bucky emerges from the shower, he smells food cooking and follows the scent even though he only has a towel around his waist.

Maria is chopping up something by the counter while Steve explains his recipe to her. Bucky walks over and peers over their shoulders. “Smells good,” he interrupts before reaching to snag a chopped carrot off of the cutting board and popping it into his mouth.

“For God’s sake, Bucky, go put some clothes on.”

When Bucky finally puts a pair of sweatpants on, the three of them sit and eat in companionable silence. Maria insists that Steve not lift a finger to wash the dishes since he did the cooking and Steve jokes that he wishes they could make that rule permanent because then Bucky would finally wash a dish.

Bucky dries while Maria washes.

“I was worried earlier,” Bucky admits softly. “I saw you there, and I thought for a split second I might not get there fast enough.”

“You were fast enough, Barnes. That’s all that matters.”

When the dishes are done, Bucky suggests a movie – insisting that he’s trying to become up-to-date on the things he’s missed truly experiencing himself in the last seventy years.

The three of them settle on the couch for a movie, but within ten minutes, Maria is asleep, curled up between them on the sofa. Neither of them have the heart to wake her. Somehow, all three of them end up falling asleep there.

* * *

Pepper is the first person to bring it up when Maria finds herself back at work. The two of them are the last two in the conference room after a long meeting. 

“So how was your weekend with the super soldiers?” Pepper asks, and Maria uses all of her field training not to react.

“It was fine, it was really much more practical to stay at the Tower instead of going back to Queens,” Maria replies with a shrug.

“Uh-huh,” Pepper nods, though she is clearly unconvinced. That’s all she says, but Maria acknowledges it as a loaded statement and a question all in one.

Maria sighs. She has never been one for gossiping and chatting about her love life. Then again, she’s never really had much of a personal life to speak of and she never really had a female confidante to talk to either. She looks at Pepper for a moment and makes sure the door to the conference room is closed. “If I had an answer for you, I’d tell you. But I’m as in the dark as you are.”

Pepper frowns, clearly seeing the uncertainty on Maria’s face and reaches to press a button on the phone in the conference room. Her assistant answers and Pepper instructs her to cancel her evening meeting. “You and I are going to go get a drink and talk.”

* * *

Drinks with Pepper somehow turns into drinks with Pepper and Natasha. Maria is not comfortable with that at all. She knows how close Steve has become with Natasha, and one didn’t even have to be as well read on both the Winter Soldier and Black Widow files as Maria to know there was a history there as well. 

But the conversation starts easily enough, with Pepper talking a bit about work, Natasha doing fantastic impressions of both Tony Stark and Director Fury. And a couple of drinks in, Maria is at least feeling more relaxed than she has in, well, ever.

That is, until glass shatters and people scream and Maria nearly shouts an incredulous string of curses at the heavens when she finds herself face-to-face with a one-armed Kree.

Pepper is tucked away behind the bar, attempting to use her phone to get in touch with the others, and both Maria and Natasha have their weapons drawn.

It’s moments later when Maria’s world is going black, that she hears a distant voice telling her that the others are coming. She has the presence of mind to think that it’s too late.

* * *

She wakes up in a hospital bed and is immediately grumpy because she hates hospitals more than anything. 

She can tell, without even asking anyone that her ribs are bruised and she suffered a nasty blow to the head. There’s tightness on her side that she associates with fresh stitches and when she shifts her free hand to feel her side, she notes that the wound is rather long and anticipates a nasty scar down her side.

As she takes in her surroundings, she finds Steve asleep in a chair against the wall and Bucky asleep at her bedside, his hand over hers. He’s put the hologram protocol on again, because she still feels the chill of metal against her skin despite its very normal appearance.

She also sees Natasha, standing in the doorway. There’s a knowing look on the assassin’s face, but it’s not judgmental. In fact, it’s fairly accepting. She stirs a bit more, feeling fidgety, and Bucky is up with a start. He meets her gaze with a mix of sadness and relief.

“Didn’t get there fast enough this time.”

She shushes him, even as Steve starts to wake behind him. The three of them all exchange looks before Natasha announces from the doorway that she will go tell the doctors Maria is awake.

* * *

Later that night, Maria has a bad dream of her own; she wakes to find two concerned men peering down at her. Apparently, in the midst of her thrashing, she’s pulled the IV out. 

“I hate hospitals,” she admits quietly to them. “I have ever since I was a kid.”

“Why?”

“Too much time in them,” she whispers sadly, refusing to meet their eyes, ashamed to be showing any sign of weakness, especially in front of them.

Moments later, those same two men are off insisting to the doctors that Maria can be sent home with them to look after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all of the wonderful feedback. In the next chapter things get a bit more heated between our lovely former Deputy Director and the Winter Soldier. If you guys have any requests, prompts, etc that I can fit into either this story or a new one, feel free to pop me a message or leave a comment!


	4. Chapter 4

She’s been out of the hospital for a two weeks and Pepper has strictly forbidden her from coming into work. The rest of the team has strictly forbidden her from leaving the Tower. They were unable to take out the vengeful one-armed Kree and until they can, they don’t want a vulnerable and injured Maria someplace on her own.

It pisses Maria off, because she can handle herself.

But staying with Steve and Bucky has become somewhat normal. Despite some residual and expected awkwardness, the three fall into an easy routine.

During meals, the men regale her with tales of their exploits from both before and during the war. A few times a week, she hears Bucky in his room – nightmares plaguing his sleep. She leaves it to Steve to wake him, but is always waiting in the kitchen with a mug of tea.

Steve helps her rehab, slowly. The two of them slowly begin to repair whatever unspoken damage was done to their relationship since his return. But she keeps a careful distance, not wanting to experience the sting she felt the first time around.

Now she finds it easier to move around on her own, and her stitches have been removed.

She is stepping out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her but is completely startled by Bucky. In this situation, Steve would have stammered, blushed, and quickly left the room. Bucky just stares her in the eye.

“Was bringing you something to change in to.”

“Thank you.”

Neither of them moves for a moment and then Bucky’s eyes shift from her own down to her lips. She stands firm, doesn’t even bat an eye.

For a moment the air seems to hum with electricity around them and it’s not until Steve clears his throat behind Bucky, that Maria reaches for the clothes Bucky is holding out, and steps around him to go change in the guest room.

* * *

Later that night, Maria wakes with a start, sensing that she isn’t alone. Her gun is off the end table and aimed before her eyes adjust to the darkness. Bucky doesn’t even flinch. She doesn’t lower the gun for a moment, but her finger moves from the trigger before he steps closer to the bed.

In the dim light from the New York City streets outside her window, she can make out dark circles under his eyes and a tiredness that he rarely allows himself to show. So she shifts on the mattress wordlessly and suddenly she is laying in bed, her back pressed against Bucky’s chest and his arm around her.

His fingers trace a nonsensical pattern on her arm absentmindedly and she waits for him to speak. When he doesn’t, she closes her eyes and waits for his fingers to stop moving on her skin and his breathing to even out. She lets sleep take her too.

When she wakes in the morning, he’s not there anymore. She’s never been a particularly heavy sleeper, but she’s not surprised that he could sneak out undetected.

When she pads out into the kitchen, he is on the couch. She remembers that Steve has a meeting with Stark and Banner upstairs. So she looks at him, tilts her head and lets her lips curl into a slight smirk. “What? No breakfast?”

Forty minutes later, Maria is sitting on the counter top, picking at the remains of her bacon and eggs while Bucky peruses the newspaper, asking her questions about things he reads that he still doesn’t have enough context to comprehend fully.

When she’s finished eating, he pulls her plate from her hands and puts it in the sink. She cooked, he’ll do the dishes.

She reaches for the paper and finds the crossword, mentally noting answers as he works. She’s on 17 across when she finds herself splashed with water from the sink. “Barnes!” her face is contorted in a scowl, but there’s laughter in her voice and she makes to swat at him with the paper in her hand. He catches her wrist.

Before she can blink, he’s stepping close, standing between her legs and looking up at her with dark eyes. His grip is firm on her wrist still but not painful.

She feels his breath ghosting over her lips before he tilts his head and presses a kiss to her bare shoulder.

“Barnes,” she hisses, not sure if she means it as a plea or a warning.

His teeth sink gently into her skin, just enough to cause a bit of pain and also a delicious shudder down her spine.

“What is it?” he asks, his voice rough. His hand has released her wrist and is now on her hip, thumb reaching to stroke her skin beneath her tank top. “Is it Steve?”

Maria blinks, suddenly pulled from the moment. She gapes at him.

“I saw the way you looked at him when I first came back, the way you still sometimes do,” he whispers, but his voice isn’t accusing. It’s like he’s simply stating a fact. His thumb rubs her skin in wider circles now and he nips at her collarbone.

“There’s nothing…Rogers and I are colleagues.”

“Does he know that? Because I see the way he looks at you when you’re not paying attention.”

Maria bites her lip, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Bucky is trying to have this discussion with her in this moment, while his hand and his mouth are making goose bumps appear on her skin.

“Knowing all of that,” he starts as though reading her mind. “Maybe I should step back and do the decent thing.” His voice is husky, dripping like honey.

Before she can respond, his mouth captures hers with a bruising kiss. It’s demanding, but she hears the silent plea in there, to not push him away. His tongue runs along her lower lip and she grants him entrance, her thighs pressing against his sides, trying to draw him closer to her. She moans into his mouth openly and tries not to think of the embarrassingly long time that has passed since she’d been in a situation like this with any man.

“I’m not him, though. I can’t be like him. Can’t court you properly and won’t treat you like glass,” he mutters against her mouth. “I can only be me and I can only be honest about that. I want to only be honest about that.”

Maria pulls back and looks at him for a moment, she sees the flash of worry in his eyes, the fear he will be rejected.

“I’m not glass,” she insists gently, hands coming up to cup his face in her hands.

“I know. You make me remember…what I felt like before,” he confides.

“You make me forget,” she states simply and watches as his lips curl into a lazy lopsided grin. “I’m not asking for you to be anyone but you, Barnes.”

Something flashes on his face, his eyes darkening as his hands drop to her hips again and drag her forward on the counter so she’s pressed against him more intimately. “Do you know what you’re asking for?”

“Show me,” she dares.

And he does.

Their lips meet again in a brutal kiss, a clash of tongue and teeth. She moans into his mouth when he pulls her off the counter, and her legs wind around his waist. Maybe he wants to guide them towards his bedroom, but they don’t get much further than the nearest wall. She grinds against him, satisfied when his hips rock back involuntarily.

Sometimes, she forgets just how strong the Winter Soldier is after having spent weeks in an apartment with him as just Bucky. But he is. His hand skims her body while he still holds her up with his cybernetic arm as though she weighs nothing. In the fight for dominance, he wins and she lets him because he needs to. They both need him to.

She gasps when his hand slips beneath the fabric of her shirt and a warm palm cups her breast.

They are both pulled from their reverie by the sound of a door closing.

Maria looks up with hooded lids and sees Steve standing in the doorway to the apartment. Unlike what she assumed, he does not blush or stammer or look away. Bucky’s movements still.

After what seems like an eternity, Bucky gently sets Maria down, waiting for her to find her footing before pulling his hands from her waist. He doesn’t step away from her, doesn’t break his eye contact with Steve.

The tension between the three of them fills the room so thickly that Maria finds herself being the one who is fidgeting and visibly uncomfortable. Steve glances in her direction and she can’t place the look on his face. Hurt? Disappointment? Shock?

“Maria, could you give Steve and I a moment to talk?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was a healthy dose of Bucky/Maria. As mentioned in my responses to comments, I have not officially decided how this story ends as it is still a work in progress. But I promise you the next chapter will contain a healthy dose of Maria/Steve, followed by some decent angst and drama for this dynamic trio. Thanks for reading, guys!


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